Shoptalk

It was wholly a pleasure to get the word from you that the New York Times is
now offering videos under the title, "Sightlines, an Op-Ed Series." That's
good news, since the pictures have to be an improvement over the prose in
the Times' editorials. (Stifle yawn here.)

"I would be interested to read your reactions," you invite. Here's mine: I
knew it would come to this. Why settle for mere words when we, too, can do
video? Words, shmords, where's my Camcorder?

It's said the latest vogue in Hollywood is to eliminate the pictures from
movies and just project the dialogue on a flat, readable, widely circulated
surface. It's now claimed that words can have an even more powerful effect
than pictures, that they can lead to wisdom, beauty, reverence, ecstasy,
even humility. Imagine that. One auteur was heard to say that a single word
is worth a thousand pictures - if it's the right word. There might be an
idea in all that. But be warned: This approach may catch on only in a
literate society.

Enough kidding. Our problem in this opinionating business - well, our big
problem - isn't any lack of technology. The stuff is everywhere and seems to
be upgraded daily, or at least faster than a technologically challenged type
like me can keep up with.

I'd just barely mastered the electronic typewriter when the word processor
came in, and everything's been in electronic flux ever since. I still miss
the Royal portable I used to write all those term papers. And I'm still in
the market for one of those bulky old Woodstocks that used to sit on desks
like a tank. If I really had my druthers, I'd probably opt for quill pens
with square nibs. Hey, if it was good enough for the Declaration of
Independence.

In the end it's not the technology of the moment, the instruments of
thought, that matter so much as the quality of the thought itself. Lewis
Carroll had the right idea: Take care of the sense and the sounds will take
care of themselves. That's the basic challenge: thinking things through.
Then the words will come, the right words.

Verbally,

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Dear Friend,

It was wholly a pleasure to get your letter full of advice about where our
editorials have gone wrong. Namely, we've been entirely too frank and
offended people. We would be much more effective, you say, if we'd tone it
down, not upset the powers that be, at least not day after day, and
generally Go with the Flow.